On the recent claim of correlation between radioactive decay rates and space weather

S Pommé,K Pelczar

doi:10.1140/epjc/s10052-020-08667-4

Abstract

In recent literature, several authors have challenged the validity of the exponential-decay law, based on observed variations in radioactive decay rate measurements beyond statistical accuracy. Tentative explanations have been sought in external interferences influencing the decay process, such as interactions of the nuclei with solar and cosmic neutrinos. Given the important implications of such statements on theoretical and practical level, one would expect that they are backed up with radionuclide metrology of the highest quality. In reality, they share the common traits of using poor metrology and incomplete uncertainty analysis with respect to the stability of the measurement technique. In this paper, new claims of correlations between decay rates and space weather are questioned.

Highlights

IntroductionThe most important class of experimental evidence pertains to activity measurements of beta emitters showing seasonal fluctuations of the order of 0.3%, with a periodicity of 1 year [13,16,17,18,19]
Susceptibility of the instrument to environmental conditions and using appropriate significance criteria [11,12]
Overwhelming counterevidence from various laboratories from four continents has proved that there are no systematic deviations from exponential decay above 0.01% level for α, β−, β+ and EC decay, and there is no coherence in amplitude and phase of annual cyclic effects in activity measurements across the globe [8,32,33,34,37,38,39,40,41]

Summary

Introduction

The most important class of experimental evidence pertains to activity measurements of beta emitters showing seasonal fluctuations of the order of 0.3%, with a periodicity of 1 year [13,16,17,18,19]. Whereas susceptibility of the measurement instrument to variations in temperature, humidity or radon concentration are plausible causes of the instabilities [32,35,36], the authors chose to make strong claims about decay being induced by solar or cosmic neutrinos interacting with the nuclei. With most claims being convincingly refuted, there are still recent papers by Milián-Sánchez et al [27,29] and Scholkmann et al [28] to be addressed These authors have measured background, capacitance and radioactive decay rates with a Geiger–Müller (GM) counter inside a ‘modified Faraday cage’ (MFC) over a short time period and assert correlations of these observables with ‘space weather’, in casu the ‘geomagnetic activity’ (GMA) and ‘cosmic-ray activity’ (CRA). As a more plausible explanation, we explore possible influences from ambient temperature and humidity

Decay rate and space weather

Capacitance and space weather

Decay rates and terrestrial weather

Findings

Capacitance and terrestrial weather